To wash (gravel, for example) in a pan for gold or other precious metal.

To cook (food) in a pan: panned the fish right after catching it.

Informal To criticize or review harshly.

verb

, intransitive

To wash gravel, sand, or other sediment in a pan.

To yield gold as a result of washing in a pan.

Phrasal Verb: pan out To turn out well; be successful: “If I don't pan out as an actor I can still go back to school”(Saul Bellow).

Origin of pan

Middle English, from Old English panne, from West Germanic *panna, probably from Vulgar Latin *patna, from Latin patina, shallow pan, platter, from Greek patanē; see pet&schwa;- in Indo-European roots.

(intransitive, photography) to move the camera lens angle while continuing to expose the film, enabling a contiguous view and enrichment of context. In still-photography large-group portraits the film usually remains on a horizontal fixed plane as the lens and/or the film holder moves to expose the film laterally. The resulting image may extend a short distance laterally or as great as 360 degrees from the point where the film first began to be exposed.

Words near Pan- in the dictionary

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(...) Pan Tadeusz gradually won recognition as the highest achievement in all Polish literature for having transformed into poetry what seemed by its very nature to resist any such attempt. In it, Mickiewicz's whole literary training culminates in an effortless conciseness where every word finds its proper place as if predestined throughout the many centuries of the history of the Polish language.